West Ham United 3-1 Newcastle United: Hammers come from behind to give Espírito Santo first win as manager | OneFootball

Despite Jacob Murphy giving Newcastle United an early lead, West Ham fought back through Lucas Paquetá, Sven Botman’s own-goal, and Tomáš Souček’s late strike to seal the three points and get their first home win in 248 days.

The win has pulled the Hammers within three points of safety ahead of next Saturday’s clash with Burnley in East London. Newcastle remain winless away in the league this season and host Athletic Club in the Champions League on Tuesday.

As it happened

Jarrod Bowen hammered the post four minutes in, but the irony was that this led to an opening Newcastle goal. They drove up the other end of the pitch through Bruno Guimarães, who fed the ball to Jacob Murphy. He then placed the ball in the bottom left corner from the edge of the box to give the Magpies the lead in the capital and condemn West Ham to an all too familiar feeling: going behind.

This time, though, things would soon improve. Aaron Wan-Bissaka picked the ball up off Anthony Gordon and played Bowen through into the box. The West Ham captain was taken down by Malick Thiaw and awarded a penalty.

However, after VAR intervened, the decision was overturned as Thiaw made contact with the ball before Bowen.

Murphy almost got his second of the afternoon 15 minutes into the game after his low shot towards the bottom corner was parried wide by Alphonse Areola.

Paqeutá came close to bringing the Hammers level half an hour in as he fired a low shot at the bottom right corner, which forced Nick Pope to tip it onto the post, where it went out for a corner.

From the resulting corner, Freddie Potts’ cross was flicked towards goal by Max Kilman, which once again forced Pope into action, tipping the ball over the bar.

West Ham got their equaliser following a period of pressure on the Newcastle box. Pope punched the ball to Mateus Fernandes, who headed it down to Paquetá on the edge of the box, before he hammered his shot in at the near post.

Gordon tried to regain Newcastle’s lead five minutes from halftime; his shot from the edge of the box once again forced Areola down low, forcing the ball wide for a corner.

The Frenchman was called back into action a few minutes later as Joelinton fired low at the bottom right corner, but it was tipped wide again.

The Hammers took the lead moments from half-time as Wan-Bissaka’s low cross was deflected in off Botman. West Ham went in with a goal advantage at the break.

The first real chance of the second half came in the 68th minute as Souček knocked down Bowen’s cross to Potts, who fired the loose ball in for what would’ve been his first Premier League goal, but the goal was chalked off after the Czech international was inches offside.

Strong defending throughout the remainder of the half kept West Ham in front.

Deep into added time, Bowen led a counterattack, whose shot was initially saved by Pope, but it fell to Souček, who bundled the ball over the line to seal the three points and an almighty sigh of relief at the London Stadium.

The line-ups

WHU: Areola; Wan-Bissaka, Kilman, Todibo, El Diouf; Fernandes, Potts, Paquetá; Bowen, Wilson, Summerville

NEW: Pope; Krafth, Thiaw, Botman, Burn; Guimarães, Tonali, Joelinton; Murphy, Woltemade, Gordon